This thesis fills a gap in the literature on the state-business relations in Japan by examining the relationships between the state and the cultural industries (anime, manga, and video games), a topic that is under-investigated. The concept of the developmental state is used to analyze the Cool Japan policy that the government implements to promote the expansion abroad of the Japanese cultural industries, and to study the reactions of anime studios, manga publishers and video games companies to this policy. Cool Japan testifies that developmentalism is still alive in Japan. Neoliberalism and the globalization process have not caused the demise of the Japanese developmental state, illustrating its adaptation to a new context. The government still assumes that it has a role to play in order to ensure the competitiveness of the domestic economy by conducting industrial policies such as Cool Japan. The Japanese authorities have institutional links with the sectors covered in this research, in particular with their business associations, and a relative degree of autonomy. These are characteristics of a developmental state. This doctoral dissertation offers evidence that Cool Japan is another case of the sectionalism of the Japanese bureaucracy. A very large number of state actors is involved in this policy, thereby raising the issue of the collaboration between them. The main gap identified is about the timing of the Cool Japan policy. Indeed the anime, manga and video games industries started the exports of their products before the implementation of this policy. Before the 2000s, the government ignored them because bureaucrats deemed that they were not profitable and unworthy of their interest. These sectors reject state intervention in their products if they receive a financial assistance.

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"The Tale of Nisuke," which deals with conditions in the Higo domain of Southern Japan around 1800 as experienced by the peasantry, forms the core of this thesis; it is here for the first time translated and studied in depth. Besides the translation of the text, I have set myself the task of establishing its value as illustrative source material for the student of Tokugawa society by identifying the background of its author and his intentions. In the absence of contemporary references to the "Tale" as well as other clues to assist me in my task, I have had to proceed by analyzing the "Tale" 's content and then to establish its position within the cultural context of Tokugawa society. The resulting socio-cultural portrait of Higo provides at the same time the clues to a correct understanding of the "Tale" as well as a comprehensive insight into rural life in a comparatively backward region of late Tokugawa Japan. The great variety of questions raised by the "Tale," a quality which makes this text so singularly suited as departure point of a cultural study, has forced me to concentrate more intensively on historical questions than would first seem warranted by the subject. All of my commentary must, however, be seen as of immediate importance to a full understanding of the "Tale". The first chapter contains a general introduction to the history of the Tokugawa period, with special reference to the developments in the village. The second chapter traces the political and economic history of the Higo domain in the 18th century to portray conditions which constitute the background to the "Tale". The third chapter contrasts peasant life in the economically advanced regions with conditions in the Higo domain and investigates the role played by the rural priesthood in the life of the peasantry. In the fourth chapter, an introduction to the tradition of critical writing in Tokugawa literature leads to a discussion of the "Tale," followed by my conclusions as to author and purpose of the "Tale". In Part Two, there then follows my annotated translation of the "Tale".

This is a study of Japanese folding screens decorated with a variety of cartographic imagery of European origin. The central argument of this work is that Japanese cartographic namban screens made during the period considered in this dissertation can assist us to further understand the marked Christian eschatological character of the pictorial programmes decorating these screens, reflecting European contemporary hopes about the messianic coming of a universal Christian King, and about the Christian future of Japan at the onset of Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada's ban against Christianity (1614). By taking into account the use of folding screens as diplomatic gifts, this research seeks to argue that the hybridity of namban cartographic screens reveals as much about the expectation of Jesuit missionaries towards the evangelization of the Japanese archipelago as they did about how Japanese artists and observers understood European cartographic knowledge within a pre-existing local ritual use of maps and cartography. This dissertation is composed of four chapters. In chapter one I describe the material qualities of folding screens, the architectural environments in which they were displayed, and how the practice of donating folding screens as diplomatic gifts was eventually co-opted by the Jesuit missionaries operating in Japan. Chapter two is a discussion on the organization and the passage of the first Japanese diplomatic mission in Europe and the role that European cartography and geographical allegories played in this event. In chapter three I will examine the dissemination of Christian sacred images in Japan and the establishment of a Jesuit school to train Japanese artists in western-style painting. Chapter four unpacks the discussion developed in the preceding chapters and focuses on two specific pairs of namban cartographic screens - the Map of the World and Twenty-Eight Cities (today at the Imperial Household Agency in Tokyo) and the Battle of Lepanto and World Map (today at the Kosetsu Museum in Kobe) - for which I propose a new interpretation.

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Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία έγινε αποτίμηση των δυναμικών παραμέτρων βραχωδών υλικών μαργαϊκού ασβεστόλιθου από την περιοχή Κύμης Ευβοίας. Οι εργαστηριακές δοκιμές έγιναν στα πλαίσια μελέτης καταπτώσεων βράχων. Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η εκτέλεση των δοκιμών βραχομηχανικής για να επιτύχουμε: 1. την απόκτηση της βασικής πληροφόρησης σχετικά με τη μηχανική συμπεριφορά του ακέραιου πετρώματος. 2. τη γεωτεχνική ταξινόμηση και το χαρακτηρισμό του βραχώδους υλικού με βάση τους διάφορους δείκτες ταξινόμησης. 3. την εκτίμηση των παραμέτρων εκείνων που μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν άμεσα στο σχεδιασμό των διάφορων τεχνικών έργων στο πέτρωμα. / --

Ως θέμα της πραγματεύεται την Εργαστηριακή διερεύνηση των φυσικών και μηχανικών ιδιοτήτων των μαλακών βράχων και των αμμωδών εδαφών με εξέταση χαρακτηριστικών παραδειγμάτων αργιλομαργαϊκής σύστασης πετρωμάτων καθώς και τις τεχνικογεωλογικές συνθήκες κατά τη διάνοιξη της οδικής σήραγγας του Πλατάνου. Πραγματοποιήθηκε δειγματοληψία από το μέτωπο εκσκαφής της σήραγγας του Πλατάνου και χρησιμοποιήσαμε 3 δείγματα για τις εργαστηριακές δοκιμές. / -